Cortex
Volume 46, Issue 5 , Pages 621-636 , May 2010

New insights into feature and conjunction search: I. Evidence from pupil size, eye movements and ageing

  • Gillian Porter

      Affiliations

    • Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Bristol, UK
    • Corresponding Author InformationCorresponding author. Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Bristol, 12a Priory Road, Bristol BS8 1TU, UK.
    • ,
  • Andrea Tales

      Affiliations

    • Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Bristol, UK
    • Department of Care of the Elderly, University of Bristol, The BRACE Centre, Blackberry Hill Hospital, Fishponds, UK
    • ,
  • Tom Troscianko

      Affiliations

    • Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Bristol, UK
    • ,
  • Gordon Wilcock

      Affiliations

    • Department of Care of the Elderly, University of Bristol, The BRACE Centre, Blackberry Hill Hospital, Fishponds, UK
    • Nuffield Department of Medicine, University of Oxford, John Radcliffe Hospital, Headington, UK
    • ,
  • Judy Haworth

      Affiliations

    • Department of Care of the Elderly, University of Bristol, The BRACE Centre, Blackberry Hill Hospital, Fishponds, UK
    • ,
  • Ute Leonards

      Affiliations

    • Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Bristol, UK

Received 7 February 2008 ,Revised 30 September 2008 ,Accepted 23 April 2009.

References 

  1. Anandam BT, Scialfa CT. Aging and the development of automaticity in feature search. Aging, Neuropsychology and Cognition. 1999;6:117–140
  2. Anstey KT, Dain S, Andrews S, Drobney J. Visual abilities in older adults explain age-differences in stroop and fluid intelligence but not face recognition: Implications for the vision-cognition connection. Aging, Neuropsychology and Cognition. 2002;9:253–265
  3. Baddeley AD, Baddeley HA, Bucks RS, Wilcock GK. Attentional control in Alzheimer's disease. Brain. 2001;124:1492–1508
  4. Beatty J. Task-evoked pupillary responses, processing load, and the structure of processing resources. Psychological Bulletin. 1982;91:276–292
  5. Bitsios P, Prettyman R, Szabadi E. Changes in autonomic function with age: A study of pupillary kinetics in healthy young and old people. Age and Ageing. 1996;25:432–438
  6. Bradley MM, Miccoli L, Escrig MA, Lang PJ. The pupil as a measure of emotional arousal and autonomic activation. Psychophysiology. 2008;45:602–607
  7. Burton-Danner K, Owsley C, Jackson GR. Aging and feature search: The effect of search area. Experimental Aging Research. 2001;27:1–18
  8. Corbetta M, Shulman GL, Miezen FM, Petersen SE. Superior parietal cortex activation during spatial attention shifts and visual feature conjunction. Science. 1995;270:802–805
  9. Donner TH, Kettermann A, Diesch E, Ostendorf F, Villringer A, Brandt SA. Visual feature and conjunction searches of equal difficulty engage only partially overlapping frontoparietal networks. NeuroImage. 2000;15:16–25
  10. Duncan J, Humphreys G. Visual search and stimulus similarity. Psychological Review. 1989;96:433–458
  11. Duncan J, Humphreys G. Beyond the search surface: Visual search and attentional engagement. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance. 1992;18:578–588
  12. Eglin M, Robertson LC, Knight RT. Cortical substrates supporting visual search in humans. Cerebral Cortex. 1991;1:262–272
  13. Enns JT, Rensink RA. Pre-attentive recovery of three-dimensional orientation from line drawings. Psychological Review. 1991;98:335–351
  14. Felleman DJ, Van Essen DC. Distributed hierarchical processing in the primate cerebral cortex. Cerebral Cortex. 1991;1:1–47
  15. Findlay JM, Gilchrist ID. Visual search. In:  Findlay JM editors. Active Vision: the Psychology of Looking and Seeing. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 2003;p. 127–153
  16. Foster JK, Behrman M, Stuss DT. Aging and visual search: Generalised cognitive slowing or selective deficit in attention?. Aging and Cognition. 1995;2:279–299
  17. Goldwater BC. Psychological significance of pupillary movements. Psychological Bulletin. 1972;77:340–355
  18. Grady CL. Brain imaging and age-related changes in cognition. Experimental Gerontology. 1998;33:661–673
  19. Granholm E, Morris S, Asarnow RF, Chock D, Jeste DV. Accelerated age-related decline in processing resources in schizophrenia: Evidence from pupillary responses recorded during the span of apprehension task. Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society. 2000;6:30–43
  20. Gregory RL. Increase in Neurological Noise as a Factor in Sensory Impairment Associated with Ageing. Concepts and Mechanisms of Perception. London: Duckworth; 1974;: 167–215
  21. Hooge ITC, Erkelens CJ. Control of fixation during a simple search task. Perception and Psychophysics. 1996;58:969–976
  22. Hooge ITC, Erkelens CJ. Peripheral vision and oculomotor control during visual search. Vision Research. 1999;39:1567–1575
  23. Hommel B, Kzh Li, Li S-C. Visual search across the lifespan. Developmental Psychology. 2004;40:545–558
  24. Humphrey DG, Kramer AF. Age differences in visual search for feature, conjunction and triple-conjunction targets. Psychology and Aging. 1997;12:704–717
  25. Jacobs AM. Eye movement control in visual search: How direct is visual span control?. Perception & Psychophysics. 1986;39:47–58
  26. Jacobs AM, O'Regan JK. Spatial and/or temporal adjustments of scanning behaviour to visibility changes. Acta Psychologica. 1987;65:133–146
  27. Kahneman D. Attention and Effort. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall Inc.; 1973;
  28. Kahneman D, Tursky B, Shapiro D, Crider A. Pupillary, heart rate, and skin resistance changes during a mental task. Journal of Experimental Psychology. 1969;79:164–167
  29. Leonards U, Palix J, Michel C, Ibanez V. Comparison of early cortical networks in efficient and inefficient visual search: An event-related potential study. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience. 2003;15:1039–1051
  30. Leonards U, Rettenbach R, Sireteanu R. Parallel visual search is not always effortless. Cognitive Brain Research. 1998;7:207–213
  31. Leonards U, Sunaert S, Van Hecke P, Orban GA. Attention mechanisms in visual search – an fMRI study. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience. 2000;12:61–75
  32. Li S-C. Neurocomputational perspectives linking neuromodulation, processing noise, representational distinctiveness, and cognitive aging. In:  Cabeza R,  Nyberg L,  Park D editor. Cognitive Neuroscience of Aging. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 2005;p. 354–379
  33. Loewenfeld IE. The Pupil: Anatomy, Physiology, and Clinical Applications. Ames: Iowa State University Press; 1993;
  34. Lowenstein O, Loewenfeld IE. The pupil. In:  Davson H editors. The Eye. vol. 3:New York: Academic Press; 1962;p. 255–337
  35. Madden DJ, Pierce TW, Allen PA. Adult age differences in the use of distractor homogeneity during visual search. Psychology and Aging. 1996;11:454–474
  36. Madden DJ, Turkington TG, Provenzale JM, Hawk TC, Hoffman JM, Coleman RE. Selective and divided visual attention: Age-related changes in regional cerebral blood flow measured by H215O PET. Human Brain Mapping. 1997;5:389–409
  37. Madden DJ, Whiting WL, Spaniol J, Bucur B. Adult age differences in the implicit and explicit components of top-down attentional guidance during visual search. Psychology and Aging. 2005;20:317–329
  38. Morris SK, Granholm E, Sarkin AJ, Jeste DV. Effects of schizophrenia & aging on pupillographic measures of working memory. Schizophrenia Research. 1997;27:119–128
  39. Nakayama K, Silverman GH. Serial and parallel processing of visual feature conjunctions. Nature. 1986;320:264–265
  40. Owsley C, Ball K, Keeton DM. Relationship between visual sensitivity and target localisation in older adults. Vision Research. 1995;35:579–587
  41. Parkhurst D, Law K, Niebur E. Modelling the role of salience in the allocation of overt visual attention. Vision Research. 2002;42:107–123
  42. Pierce GL, Henderson JM. The control of fixation duration during scene perception. Visual Cognition. 2006;15:108–112
  43. Phillips S, Takeda Y, Kumada T. An inter-item similarity model unifying feature and conjunction search. Vision Research. 2006;406:3867–3880
  44. Pinker S. How the Mind Works. London: Penguin; 1997;
  45. Plude DJ, Doussard-Roosevelt JA. Aging, selective attention, and feature integration. Psychology and Aging. 1989;4:98–105
  46. Porter G, Leonards U, Wilcock G, Troscianko T, Haworth J, Tales A. New insights into feature and conjunction search: II. Evidence from Alzheimer's disease. Cortex. 2010;46:637–649
  47. Porter G, Troscianko T. Pupillary response to grating stimuli. Perception. 2003;32:156
  48. Porter G, Troscianko T, Gilchrist ID. Effort during visual search and counting: Insights from pupillometry. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology. 2007;60:211–229
  49. Pozzessere G, Valle E, Rossi P, Petrucci B, Ambrosini A, Dalessio M, et al. Pupillometric evaluation and analysis of light reflex in healthy subjects as a tool to study autonomic nervous system changes with aging. Aging – Clinical and Experimental Research. 1996;8:55–60
  50. Rösler A, Mapstone ME, Hays AK, Mesulam M-M, Rademaker A, Gitelman DR, et al. Alterations of visual search strategy in Alzheimer's disease and aging. Neuropsychology. 2000;14:398–408
  51. Rush MC, Panek PE, Russell JE. Cautiousness and visual selective attention performance among older adults. Journal of Genetic Psychology. 1987;148:225–235
  52. Salthouse TA. Aging and measures of processing speed. Biological Psychology. 2000;54:35–54
  53. Slooter J, van Norren D. Visual acuity measured with pupil responses to checkerboard stimuli. Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science. 1980;19:105–108
  54. Theeuwes J, Kooi FL. Parallel search for a conjunction of contrast polarity and shape. Vision Research. 1994;34:3013–3016
  55. Treisman A. Features and objects: The fourteenth Bartlett memorial lecture. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology. 1988;40A:201–237
  56. Treisman A. Search, similarity, and integration of features between and within dimensions. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance. 1991;17:652–676
  57. Treisman A. Spreading suppression or feature integration – reply. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance. 1992;18:589–593
  58. Treisman A, Gelade G. A feature integration theory of attention. Cognitive Psychology. 1980;12:97–136
  59. Treisman A, Gormican S. Feature analysis in early vision: Evidence from search asymmetries. Psychological Review. 1988;95:15–48
  60. Treisman A, Sato S. Conjunction search revisited. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance. 1990;16:459–478
  61. Treisman A, Souther J. Search asymmetry: A diagnostic for preattentive processing of separable features. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. 1985;114:285–310
  62. Ukai K. Spatial pattern as a stimulus to the pupillary system. Journal of the Optical Society of America. 1985;2:1094–1099
  63. Ward NS, Frackowiak RSJ. Age-related changes in the neural correlates of motor performance. Brain. 2003;126:873–888
  64. Watson DG, Maylor EA, Bruce LAM. Search, enumeration, and aging: Eye movement requirements cause age-equivalent performance in enumeration but not in search tasks. Psychology and Aging. 2005;20:226–240
  65. Whiting WL, Madden DJ, Pierce TW, Allen PA. Searching from the top down: Ageing and attentional guidance during singleton detection. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology. 2005;58A:72–97
  66. Wolfe JM. Guided search 2.0: A revised model of visual search. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review. 1994;1:202–238
  67. Wolfe JM. Visual search. In:  Pashler H editors. Attention. Psychology Press; 1998;p. 13–73
  68. Zelinsky GJ, Sheinberg DL. Eye movements during parallel-serial visual search. Journal of Experimental Psychology, Human Perception and Performance. 1997;23:244–262

PII: S0010-9452(09)00163-4

doi: 10.1016/j.cortex.2009.04.013

Cortex
Volume 46, Issue 5 , Pages 621-636 , May 2010

Article Tools

* Image Usage & Resolution